Expanding Multi-Residential Recycling

Markham recently launched Mission Green, a multi-phase plan to divert 70 percent of its waste from landfill. The first two phases included the introduction of a “Green Bin” for residential organics collection and an expanded Blue Box curbside recycling program. The third phase is to expand the multi-residential recycling program to mirror that of the single-family Blue Box program to eliminate the need for sorting, and to introduce front-end bulk recycling collection. Markham's multi-residential sector comprises 51 highrise buildings with about 5,000 living units and accounts for about 10 percent of Markham’s population, which in 2005 diverted only 11 percent of its waste from landfill. The list of acceptable materials in Markham’s current multi-residential recycling program is limited and the five-stream sort is inconvenient. Expanding the multi-residential recycling program and enhancing accessibility to and convenience of recycling in 2006 will increase Markham's multi-residential recycling rate to 25 percent in 2007. A diversion of an additional 836 tonnes of waste is anticipated; this will take an additional 26 trucks off the road to Michigan landfills. Also, the anticipated diversion of the additional tonnage to the recycling stream will reduce demand for non-renewable resources and associated production of greenhouse gases required for producing such new products.